Save this article to read it later.
Find this story in your accountsSaved for Latersection.
When was the first time you cried over a cartoon?
Was it Hazel giving up the ghost inWatership Down, or Simba curling up beside Mufasa inThe Lion King?
It was Steven Spielberg who said, Wait a minute.
We all are born, we all live to a certain age, and then we all go.
And someday we come back again.
Everyone has to go through it.
This is a moment, he recalled Spielberg saying, called the great circle of life.
But it was Bluths film that brought it to the world.
All too appropriate, considering his career.
He returned in 1971, but he wasnt thrilled by how much had changed.
I kept watching those diminish.
Which is exactly what they did.
Frisby and the Rats of NIMH.
And it changed animation history.
Brisbys inner strength was inspired by Bluths grandmother.
She had 13 children, and her husband died when the oldest was 18, Bluth says.
Mrs. Brisby reminded me of her.
Shes more like, Whatever I have to do to save my family, I will do.
Thats a strong theme going throughout the film.
Shes surrounded by dangers.
Danger serious, life-threatening danger is omnipresent in Bluths work.
InAll Dogs Go to Heaven, the films canine lead is, quite literally, a dead dog.
And, of course, Littlefoots mother doesnt escape at all.
InBambi, the mothers death at the hands of the hunter, Man heartrending as it is occurs offscreen.
InThe Land Before Time, Littlefoot literally watches his mother die.
Still,Bambiwas a major influence on Bluth.
I saw it sitting in a theater next to my own mother, he says.
What that scene did was prepare me for the moment when that would happen to my mother.
She wouldnt be shot by a hunter, but she would depart.
Mothers have to leave their children, or they wont grow up.
That is a human thing.
Its something he makes a point of teaching a new generation of animators at his ownDon Bluth University.
When his students first attend a class, many of them are simply hoping to improve their drawing.
If you show the dark moments, then the triumphant moments have more power.
And if animators dont understand that, I dont think theyre animating.
What theyre doing is drawing.
